Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis is an important contribution, offering new insights to the crucial and complicated dilemmas regarding rescue in cases of genocides. Governments’ ability to help humanity, even powerful states like the U.S., has its limits. The author rejects the possibility of military intervention and proposes philanthropy as an effective way to save lives. -- Yair Auron, PhD, The Open University of Israel
This is an outstanding work, and will have an effect upon the perceptions by historians and students of American policy. -- William Rubinstein, Aberystwyth University
This is a work that engages a highly important issue in the country's past, current situation, and likely challenges in the future in a manner that is both original and balanced. The reading public as well as the nation's leaders and their advisors will find here helpful insights into a most difficult problem. -- Gerhard L. Weinberg, author of A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II
Using an array of primary sources, Keith Pomakoy presents case studies of American rescue or relief measures in response to genocide. From Spanish anti-insurgency measures in late nineteenth-century Cuba to cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the 1990s, the United States has never devised an easy way to halt genocide. Expanding upon Merle Curti’s 1963 American Philanthropy Abroad, Pomakoy shows that private organizations often supplied effective assistance when government could not or would not. * Journal of American History *
Table of Contents1 Introduction 2 "Strictly Speaking": What is Genocide? 3 American Philanthropy 4 "The Good Samaritan," America and the War with Spain 5 "They Fear that the Matter will have to Run its Course": America and the Armenian Tragedy 6 "No Cardinals in Russia": America and the Terror Famine 7 "Jews, Zionists and Social Workers": American Rescue Policy in The Caldron of World War II 8 "The United Nations is Silent": Facing Genocide in the Cold War 9 "Novus Ordo Seclorum": An End to Genocide? 10 Conclusion 11 Bibliography 12 About the Author
